PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A senior Cambodian official has said his country has tentatively agreed to accept asylum-seekers who had been seeking to settle in Australia in a potential deal criticized by refugee advocates.

What the anger over the temporary foreign workers program obscures is the overall shift in the country’s immigration strategy over the last decade that has brought us to this point, a system that critics charge treats foreigners coming to Canada as mere cogs in the economic machinery.

OTTAWA — As tensions heat up over federal cuts to refugee health coverage, the Canadian Medical Association Journal has weighed in with a scathing editorial that calls them “medically irrational” and “economically irresponsible.

The government has already saved more than $600 million since it cracked down a year ago on countries believed responsible for thousands of bogus refugee claims, Immigration Minister Chris Alexander announced Wednesday.

OTTAWA — The Canada Border Services Agency has set a quota to try to strip at least 875 refugees of their status this fiscal year — four-and-a-half times last year's target — in a move one immigration expert calls "absolutely outrageous.

OTTAWA — The federal government has finally agreed to pick of the tab for a family that was welcomed back to Canada after being denied refugee status and deported to torture in Libya only to learn their visas wouldn't be issued until they coughed up $6,800— the cost of their initial removal.

OTTAWA — A man who was tortured after he and his family lost their bid for asylum and were deported to Libya was told this week to pay $6,800 to cover their removal costs before Canada would issue their visas.

VANCOUVER — Immigration lawyers say failed refugee claimants who came to Canada aboard the MV Sun Sea three years ago ought to have their cases re-opened following the revelation that government representatives did not disclose at some hearings evidence that the Tamil passengers could face persecution if returned to their native Sri Lanka.